Broadband Challenge Make-Up

I’ve been using online as my main source of movies and television for the past 3 years. When I decided to go back to school, I decided to get rid of the expense (both time and financial) of cable. It was a year into school before I found ninjavideo.net … my hub for television/movies/and cartoons. They have a bunch of different ways to load content. Now that I’m finishing up at school, I’m just starting to consider whether or not I should get cable again. You know what? I’m thinking I don’t really need to get it. And I haven’t listened to radio, really, since first year when I worked as a cook in a pizza shop (and radio was the background noise).

Online TV is better than regular TV because there are hardly any ads. Some websites show pre-roll ads or ads every 5-10 minutes. But not the ones I use. On occasion, I’ve watched shows with pre-rolls, and I found it pretty annoying. For me, I don’t mind watching an ad as long as it’s short. If it’s entertaining, so much the better, but I don’t really care in the end. I just want to watch the content.

The only real drawback to watching TV online is where I’m sitting when I watch it. I’m usually condemned to sitting in my office chair. Every once in a while, my girlfriend and I take my entire computer (Apple desktop) and put it on the foot of my bed so we can relax and watch in comfort. It’s a really clumsy situation, though, and there’s always the clean-up process afterwards. It’s probably just another of the reasons behind the trend towards integrating Internet connections into televisions.

The only chance I get to listen to music is in the morning at work (where we collectively choose between songs on YouTube) or on my CD player when I’m doing housework. In each case, I avoid advertising completely (we avoid the YouTube pop-ups because we only use the music as background sound … we don’t watch the videos).

Mobile Moron? Well, Maybe.

I have to admit, I’m a mobile vergin. I’ve never owned a cell phone, and I’ve only ever looked at or dialled the cell phones of a couple of friends. And now, I’m at a loss. I’ve always resisted the idea of being accessible to anyone, anywhere I go. But I realize now that it doesn’t have to be like that at all. And I also realize that the benefits of a phone can be significant if you apply it to business (like scheduling and easier contact with home base). Since I’m trying to become an Account Manager/Executive, this has huge relevance to me. One application I’m really interested in is the iPhone iCal ap. I love the idea of having a compact, easy-to-edit calendar that I can sync up with my computer.

So, no, I’ve never experienced a mobile campaign or any location-based marketing efforts. And I don’t really have any privacy concerns about the medium, though I assume there’s a certain decrease in privacy and obscurity when you sign on to a cell phone. One concern I have about location-based marketing is how many people are likely to buy in. From what I understand, a lot of this type of marketing relies on having Bluetooth enabled on your cell phone. But I’ve also heard from many cell-carrying friends that they never enable their Bluetooth because it drains the battery really quickly. And yet there have been clear successes in location-based marketing efforts, so someone’s taking part. Maybe it only happens in truly International metropolitan areas (where cell phone use and technology is at its highest). I think it will still be a while before location-based marketing is adopted fully in Canada. Though cell-phone use is high, we’re still really limited in how we use them.

Assignment 3 Make-up: Obama Campaign

Barack Obama’s use of social media as a tool of his election campaign is well noted to date. But let’s recap. He used a combination of blogging, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and communal Wiki (a private website that all members of a group can edit). The team used Wiki’s to organize volunteers and update each other on new happenings. A combination of the rest were used to keep supporters actively updated and mobile. Though Obama has admitted post-election that he’s never personally Twittered, on the day of the election the Obama Twitter account had 118,107 followers compared to McCain’s paltry 4942 followers. And by election day, Obama had 844,927 MySpace friends compared to McCain's 219,404. And really, I think these numbers are indicative of youth. The demographics of social media users back then tended to fall in line more closely with those of the Democratic voters. His most active supporters were among the heaviest users of the medium. These users were also huge generators of branding for Obama. They created iconic images and held events and spread it all around.

This whole campaign also illustrates an important lesson brought to us by Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message. During the campaign, social media was still just starting to boom, and mostly it was used by younger people. Since Obama used social media almost exclusively, he became known as a more youthful and energetic candidate, one who was on the cutting edge. It also helped that he was a bit of a blank slate.

An Ottawa brand that’s been using social media really well is the Ottawa Fringe festival. They use a combination of Facebook, Twitter, Flikr, and YouTube. And it makes a lot of sense for a theatre festival. Facebook’s used by the festival and the artists to create groups and communicate show times. Twitter’s used by everyone to update when a show has sold out or a line up is getting long. Flikr is used to show pics of the people having fun at the Fringe tent. And YouTube is used as a publicity page where artists can upload promotional videos and create buzz.

Gutzy Guerillas

I feel like I’ve totally missed out on the Guerilla Marketing thing. Living in Ottawa, I never get to see anything truly ground breaking, and the underground advertising element here is pretty much non-existent. For cool Guerilla executuions, I pretty much have to resort – like just about everyone else – to the Internet.


Here are a couple of really cool examples of Guerilla Marketing done well.

Stadt Apotheke – a pharmaceutical company in Switzerland with offerings like sunscreen and skin care products – took to Zurich’s biggest park to spread the word about skin cancer (and establish a little branding to boot). I love how they effectively turned a field of sunbathers into a living morgue, complete with toe-tags. You can see the great campaign developed by Wirz/BBDO Switzerland here. The campaign not only elicits a deep emotional reaction relevant to those who “participate”, but it also uses the “participants” to create a greater picture à la collective. Very cool stuff.

Another simple idea was executed by Shiner Beer and their agency, McGarrah Jessee, outside of the Heineken-sponsored 2008 Austin City Limits music festival. It was a hot day in Texas, and Shiner distributed free beer Kozies (to keep beer cold) just outside the gates to people entering the festival. You can see it here. It feels a little cutthroat, but it was a really simple idea and I like that it not only gave people something they wanted (to keep their beer cold), but also gave buzz to a rivalry between Heineken and the local favourite in Austin: Shiner Beer.


As far as the sentiments expressed in Urban Spam, I feel a counterculture to advertising overload is a completely constructive resource for the industry. Having people react so strongly to advertising tells us advertisers a little something about what we should be striving for. Interruption-based advertising is becoming more scarce, and there’s a growing movement against it. Permission-based advertising is the way of the future, it seems, and rightly so. Also, the type of counterculture showcased in Urban Spam can bring serious issues about a company to light. It’s an effective way for consumers to find out those nasty little details about a company’s ethics, and those brands that feel the counterculture wrath serve as a warning to others. It says, be very careful about everything you do, and always be accountable OR THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! Yes, it makes it harder for advertisers to get good messaging out in an effective (and less intrusive) way, but that’s the way it should be. Adversity breeds creativity and focus which breeds better advertising.

Look into my crystal Oscar

Our task this week is to predict the winner of the Oscar for Best Picture using social media tools.  As a starting point, we were given a list of some of the more credible websites which can be used in tracking/measuring social media. 

 

And the nominees are :

Avatar

The Blind Side

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

Up in the Air

Up

A Serious Man

Precious

An Education

District 9

 

So how does one predict a winner based solely on what people are saying, and how they are saying it?

 

I started out by simply opening the recommended websites and typing the movie titles into the search bar.  I also tried ‘Oscars’ and ‘Academy Awards’ and sometimes the names of hte actors.  I found some interesting stuff.  Like:

 

• Most of the websites provided make mention of the more popular films (such as the top 4 listed above) and not of the rest.
• Some sites ask you to register your information before being granted an account.  (some sites even ask you to pay).
• Trendhunter.com only really made mention of Avatar and Inglourious Basterds.  There were all sorts of interesting movie-related items for sale (like leather Pandora masks and miniature figurines of Aldo Raine in Nazi-fighting gear)
• There’s a really cool article about how District 9 used QR coding as part of their advertising campaign.
• I found forums, like Y!Buzz, where people were debating which films were better.
• You can find how a movie – like Inglourious Basterds – was received soon after its release at websites like CrimsonHexagon.com (looks like it did pretty well!)
• You cant track the progression of a movie’s reception – like Avatar – with tracking sites like BuzzStudy.com (looks like it did pretty well too!)

 

I think what I’ll primarily base my guess on is an awesome website called SocialMention.com.  It tracks keywords used all over the Internet, the sentiment in which it’s being used, and even time stats letting you know when the last person mentioned the keyword.  Of all the movies nominated, Avatar is by far the most discussed.  This is true for all the social media sites I visited, but especially so on Social Mention.  The Hurt locker didn’t do nearly as well as I thought it would (based solely on my overhearing the conversations of friends).  The two real contenders were The Blind Side and Inglourious Basterds.  Both had high Strenght, Sentiment, Passion, and Reach ratings, and both had the same average minutes per mention.  The real difference came down to the Sentiment chart where The Blind Side had 65 positive, 56 neutral, and 9 negative sentiments while Inglourious Basterds had 55 positive, 63 neutral, and 9 negative sentiments.  These stats tell me that lots of people are engaged in conversations with these two movies, but that the opinion is more overtly positive towards the Blind Side than it is for Basterds. 

 

So that’s my guess.  The Blind Side will win it.

 

Stay tuned for future postings where I evaluate how successful my basis for predictions really is.

Blogs and RSS feeds

Our assignment this week was to try some RSS readers.  I settled on Google reader because it's pretty intuitive with a really easy user interface.  The other readers I checked out were also pretty easy to use, but I like the way Google lets me group my feeds and I already have a Google account, so ... here we are.

I've been adding various blogs and websites to my reader over the past week and keeping up to date with them (well, mostly).  What I like about the reader is that I can get caught up on all the updates at a quick glance.  I can't read full articles in Google reader, however.  I have to click on each link (if I so choose), and then I'm brought to the original website.

This week, our class was also tasked with finding other blogs focussed on something we're passionate about (for me, it's Theatre!).  One question that came to mind when I was trolling around was what happens to page impressions when someone chooses to use an RSS feed?  Can blogs and websites track stats through the feed?  To find out, I sent an e-mail to Sterling Lynch, a local Ottawa thespian who has maintained his own blog for some time now.  Sterling said, "My understanding is that if a person views a page through Google reader, it is counted as a page view.  I used to have a little button that people could use to subscribe to the blog, and it would tell me if someone did.  People rarely used it."  Which just goes to show that people really are choosing their own ways to view content.  Sterling doesn't advertise on his blog, but he often links the reader to other blogs and news sites.  It's a really great way to build a community through sharing.

Another great blog called Struts and Frets by local Equity actor Kris Joseph is a great way to find out about what he's up to and any theatre news he's privy to.  In fact, his blog told me about a play he's in (Mother Courage) at the NAC.  So I went and saw it.  And, just like his blog said, it was "pretty damn good".

Honestly, I can't believe I haven't learned about this RSS reader stuff until now.  It's a great way to keep up on new trends and news.  I still haven't commented on too many blogs .. I find I don't have much to say yet.  But now I have one more link to the Ottawa theatre scene, to which most of my friends belong.

New Class, New Perspective

So I've been toiling around on the interweb looking at various advertising blogs recommended by our teacher, Gabor.  He really stressed the idea that as future advertisers, we should be taking the time to check out industry blogs and the like.  I agree.  I checked out Adrants.com , Adverblog.com , and psfk.com.

I don't really have much to say about them.  They all kind of pick up on interesting, quirky, or company stories ... not always with a nod to advertising.  Formats vary (some have video, some are heavy linkers, etc.) but they all kind of take the same shape.

I suppose if I'm going to have this new segment in my blog experience, I should focus my approach.  Maybe I could develop an alter-ego persona, and report on my findings in a funny way.  But do people really go to blogs for fake entertainment, or do they really just want to hear from real people?  After all, it's all about communication, right?  What happens when part of that communication is make believe?

Yeah, I know.  Not a great post first time out of the gate.  But it'll get better.  Promise.